HAVING done a litter pick earlier in the year, people who did another on October 1 along the road and the grassed areas at the back of Tesco leading to the railway station at Crediton were disappointed to fill more than one big wire mesh cage with rubbish.

The litter pick had been organised by Dominic Palfreman, marketing and publicity manager for the Turning Tides Project CIC based at Crediton Station Tea Rooms.

Six months ago they had been a little shocked at the amount of litter they had found. The area had looked a lot better and Dominic said there was little point in leaving litter of any sort to be chopped up and scattered when the grass was mown, also it was a way to continue to respect the environment.

He said that this time they had picked up a vast amount of waste, mainly comprising of bottles and bagged dog poo. Last time it had been nearly double the amount and a lot was bigger things such as truck tyres, sinks, even a broken axle.

Dominic said when they had cleared another area they found rather a lot of discarded tyres so they put them to good use as containers for growing salad stuffs such as tomatoes and rocket, herbs they use in the cafe and flowers. They are now looking towards planting for winter edibles.

At the side of the cafe is a patch they have cleared and sown with meadow flowers. Wanting to keep that area nice was one of the reasons for the litter pick.

Turning Tides has been at the cafe for a year, jet washing outside when they moved in, decorating, creating the flower patches and generally giving it their own feel.

“We will be looking at running more regular smaller clean-ups throughout the year and will look at planning further in advance so we have more people involved,” Dominic added.

He wondered if finding less this time was down to the efforts of one man who every week voluntarily litter picks around the area. “Even so, the amount we found was completely unacceptable,” he said.